Twitter Will Not Go Down Without a Fight

Twitter has been around for some time. It’s no surprise that in order to keep up with Instagram and Snapchat, Twitter needed to add some flavor to their platform.

The social platform has roughly 320 million users per month whereas Instagram has 700 million. It’s not clear whether Twitter is going to disappear anytime soon. However they definitely need to continue innovating in order to keep up.

So far in the recent weeks, some more recent, Twitter has announced some new features they will be adding for users.

1- 280 Characters Instead of 140

On September 26 the company announced that they will be testing out 280 characters per tweet. Originally 140 characters was made to be similar to the 160 character limit of an SMS text.

Today however with Twitter being used for news, politics, and communication the company feels 280 can ease the frustrations of US based users.

It’s not yet decided whether 280 characters will be officially implemented. For now only a small selection of users gets to test out the new feature.

2- Save For Later Feature

Few days ago Twitter let the users know that they are also testing a ‘bookmark’ feature. They are considering replacing the “send via dm” icon on the bottom right of a tweet with and overflowing menu.

This menu will have both “send via dm” option and the “save for later” button. Not a really significant feature but after getting a ton of requests the company decided it might be worthwhile.

3 – The ‘Happening Now’ Feature

A while back we got a similar update to our timelines. The ‘Happening Now’ feature aims to keep users up to date with ongoing events. Similar to what Snapchat has.

Currently the feature is only limited to sports events. You’ll find this feature at the very top of your timeline.

There will be a label that will show you events and topics Twitter believes you’ll be interested in. Once you click on a choice you’ll be sent to tweets people have posted in regards to the event.

Will These Features Change Twitter?

No. Quite frankly I don’t believe this new features are enough to make the platform on par with Instagram. It’s still important that Twitter continue to come up with better ways to provide us with a better experience.

The only concern I find with their ‘Happening Now’ feature is the unfortunate opportunity for politics. Facebook fell down a similar trap and Twitter has already been polluted with politics.